Sami Deffala, who's managed a corner store in Chicago's Englewood neighborhood for 13 years, said he hears that every day from customers vying for a private moment in hopes of using their Link cards to exchange SNAP benefits, the modern-day version of food stamps, for cash — an illegal practice called trafficking by federal regulators. And every day, Deffala said, he hears them out but refuses to take part in the scheme.

"I have people young and old doing this, from an 18 year-old-woman to a 67-year-old man," said Deffala, manager of Morgan Mini Mart. "It's a big problem."

The temptation proves too great for some retailers. Since October 2014, more than 140 stores in Chicago and another 34 in suburban Cook County have been permanently disqualified from the $75 billion federal food stamps program, officially known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. All but one of them were kicked out for trafficking, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Nationally, food stamp trafficking is on the decline, amounting to only 1.3 percent of SNAP spending, compared with 4 percent in the 1990s. And the vast majority of SNAP benefits — 82 percent — are redeemed at supermarkets and merchants like Costco.

In Chicago, more than 140 stores have been disqualfied from the SNAP program since 2014.

Nevertheless, the $975 million lost annually to food stamp trafficking, as Republicans in Congress have sought to cut SNAP's funding, has prompted the USDA in recent years to send a clear message through more sophisticated tracking and aggressive enforcement: Trafficking will not be tolerated.

"I think they know the rules. ... It's just a temptation that some stores give into. They're playing the odds they won't get caught," said USDA Undersecretary Kevin Concannon.

The crackdown has created empty storefronts and fewer shopping options in parts of Chicago, as most disqualified retailers were corner stores in low-income predominantly minority neighborhoods on Chicago's South and West sides. In those neighborhoods, a store getting booted from SNAP effectively means getting shut down. Some SNAP advocates say corner store trafficking represents a symptom of a much larger problem — deeply entrenched poverty exacerbated by poor schools, nonexistent jobs, scant business development and years of neglect from all levels of government.

In Illinois, about 1.9 million people receive assistance through SNAP, up from about 1.2 million people some 10 years ago. Nationally, roughly 43.4 million people receive an average monthly benefit of about $125, according to USDA data from May. The monthly benefit has decreased or stayed basically flat for the past five years.

Exchanging benefits for cash comes at a cost, both for taxpayers and those perpetrating the scam. In a typical scenario, a customer might trade $100 worth of benefits for $50 cash, leaving the other $50 for the retailer. For corner stores with razor-thin margins, such high-risk deals might represent a source of needed income. Customers lose a portion of their benefits in the deal, but they walk away with cash that can be used for expenses that can't be paid for with SNAP benefits, which are intended only for food.

"We don't want these merchants preying on low-income communities of color and we don't want them tearing away at this important program," said Diane Doherty, executive director of the Illinois Hunger Coalition.

Certainly, not all SNAP benefits are exchanged to help make rent. One customer of stores on the Near West Side said he swapped his benefits for cash to support his heroin habit and to buy diapers for his baby daughter.

"It undermines public confidence when SNAP benefits are not used the way they're intended. ... You can't just violate the program and rationalize it by saying, 'Well, I was struggling,'" Concannon said.

I think they know the rules. ... It's just a temptation that some stores give into. They're playing the odds they won't get caught.— USDA Undersecretary Kevin Concannon

Cracking down

On a grim two-block stretch of West Chicago Avenue on the city's West Side, straddling the neighborhood boundary of Humboldt Park and East Garfield Park, three corner stores were disqualified last year for trafficking. Two are now shuttered; one has since reopened under new ownership. A "Grand Opening" sign still hangs on the storefront beneath a bright yellow menu hawking dishes such as gyro sandwiches, chicken wings and fish dinners.

At Homan Food and Deli, another corner store on the same block, employee Ammar Alobadi said he and co-workers are asked daily by customers to exchange benefits for cash but they refuse because it's considered haram, or forbidden, in Islam.

Across the street, Mohamed Salam, manager of Ben Salem Food Market, offered a more worldly reason to not participate in food stamp trafficking.

If a store's caught trafficking, the government will "take everything you have and they shut you down," Salam said, speaking from behind the protective partition of the elevated counter common in many corner stores.

At one Englewood store, Link card sales account for about 80 percent of the business.

In recent years, the federal government has used enhanced data tracking tools to sanction more stores, tracking suspicious transactions of electronic benefits. Stores are then ranked based on risk, placed on the agency's watch list as needed, and reviewed further by USDA analysts. Sometimes undercover agents are deployed to stores suspected of breaking the rules, Concannon said.

Chris Sweda / Chicago Tribune

Sami Deffala gets some fresh air Aug. 16, 2016, outside his Morgan Mini Mart on the corner of 66th and Morgan streets in Chicago's Englewood neighborhood.

Between fiscal years 2013 and 2015, the total number of stores disqualified nationally rose from 1,215 to 1,906, representing a 57 percent increase, according to the USDA. But the total number of authorized SNAP retailers still increased by 5,670 stores during that time.

In some cases, SNAP violations lead to criminal prosecutions. Since October 2014, 16 indictments and 12 convictions of Chicago retailers, stemming from investigations conducted by the USDA's Office of Inspector General, have led to $2 million in fines, forfeitures and restitution orders.

Corner stores were already a source of concern for the Cook County state's attorney's Regional Organized Crime Task Force, which found they're often "conduits of bad operations," including fencing stolen goods, identity theft, organized crime and SNAP trafficking, said Assistant State's Attorney David Williams. The Cook County state's attorney's office has partnered with federal authorities on prosecutions.

In 2011, the task force successfully lobbied state lawmakers to toughen penalties for crimes that sometimes occur at corner stores, including trafficking, allowing prosectors to charge higher-level felonies and seize assets if patterns of criminal conduct could be proven, Williams said. Williams said he considered SNAP trafficking to be "fairly rampant" among Chicago corner stores.

We see a lot of it. It's a major problem. It's our tax money that's basically funding these criminal operations.— Assistant State's Attorney David Williams

"We see a lot of it. It's a major problem. It's our tax money that's basically funding these criminal operations," he said.

A symptom, not the cause

Angela Odoms-Young, an associate professor of kinesiology and nutrition at the University of Illinois at Chicago, has researched corner stores and healthy eating in urban communities for years. In some cases, people are willing to exchange benefits for cash to get their basic needs met in times when they are "food rich, but cash poor," she said.

Trafficking is more a "symptom" than it is the "root issue," Odoms-Young said.

"It is the systematic, historical, structural inequity that exists that would cause a person to be willing to exchange their food benefits for cash because they need to pay utilities, get gas, pay for housing," she said.

Fewer people are receiving cash assistance from the government than in years past. In 1996, President Bill Clinton signed into law a major overhaul of the welfare system that replaced the federal entitlement program with a state-administered block grant known as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF. One result is welfare programs don't automatically expand in times of economic downturn, shifting some burden to SNAP.

From 1989 to 2014, the number of households receiving SNAP benefits more than tripled as the country weathered financial storms including the Great Recession — from 7.3 million households in 1989 to 22.7 million households in 2014, according to the USDA. But during that same time period, the percentage of SNAP households that also received cash welfare benefits fell from 42 percent in 1989 to just 6 percent in 2014.

"The trafficking conversation plays into this image of the criminalization of the poor," whereas as the larger focus should be on ensuring people have adequate resources to live and access to a variety of healthy food options within their communities, Odoms-Young said.

SNAP advocates point not only to the help it provides to some 43 million impoverished people in the U.S. — assistance that doesn't burden cash-strapped state coffers — but also to its broader economic benefit. Every $5 in new SNAP benefits generates up to $9 in economic activity, according to the USDA.

'A forgotten population'

Driving through Englewood on a recent rainy morning, Shamar Hemphill cast his gaze out the window at a small cluster of people idling outside a corner store and sighed.

"This is what happens. This is the economy," said Hemphill, director of organizing for the Inner-City Muslim Action Network.

Since its inception in 2007, the nonprofit has worked to ease racial tensions between corner store owners — often immigrants of Middle Eastern descent — and their largely African-American customer base in some Chicago neighborhoods, Hemphill said. In recent years, the group also has worked with retailers to promote healthy food options.

Hemphill sees corner stores as a "forgotten population" of merchants with little support from the city or the USDA. And yet, they're often the only source of sustenance in some of Chicago's poorest and most dangerous neighborhoods, he said.

Ultimately, it's a good thing that the USDA is "agitating" with increased enforcement of trafficking, Hemphill said. But in neighborhoods like Englewood, where jobs are scarce, schools are poor and economic development is almost nonexistent, there are other factors to consider too, he said.

Stores "feel like they're operating on an island and don't have any help," Hemphill said.

Sami Deffala's Morgan Mini Mart in Englewood provides a glimpse of how corner stores might be part of the solution, rather than the problem. Clean and well-lit, the store features a bevy of hot meal options, a full meat counter and a modest produce selection. There is no partition at the counter. Deffala addresses his customers as "sir" and "ma'am" — a respect instilled in him by his father, who also ran an Englewood corner store.

"When you have respect for your customer, you don't have anything to fear but God," Deffala said.

On a recent morning, he offered paper towels to a woman coming in from the rain, a free piece of cake to a young girl celebrating her birthday. In 13 years of operation, the store has never faced sanctions from the USDA.

But Deffala also knows that when he refuses to exchange SNAP benefits for cash, that's not the end of the conversation. Some Link card holders also strike deals with other customers, using their cards to buy the customers' groceries in exchange for cash, he said. They can also simply go to another store willing to oblige.

A USDA official hasn't set foot in Morgan Mini Mart in at least two years, said Deffala, who added that more frequent inspections of corner stores could help prevent trafficking. And the state government could help by adding the cardholder's name and photo to Link cards, making it harder to use someone else's benefits, he said.

"It's easy money and some stores have become enablers," Deffala said. "But it's not just the stores, the government is also at fault here."